1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to a computer system management. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method and apparatus for monitoring text-based communications to secure a computer.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a typical computing environment, an organization may employ any number of technologies to process, store, protect, recover, produce and secure mission critical data. For example, the organization may employ one or more data protection systems to backup and recover the mission critical data after a disaster or data corruption. As another example, the organization may employ one or more security systems to detect and/or mitigate network-based threats, such as viruses, intrusions, SPAM and/or the like.
Individuals within the organization may utilize various software applications (e.g., AOL Instant Messenger, Second Life, GOOGLE GChat and/or the like) to communicate textual data to computing devices within the computing environment as well as all over the world. The various software applications employ different protocols to correctly route the textual data from a source computing device to one or more destination computing devices. For example, an individual may use one or more email protocols, instant message protocols or virtual worlds to communicate with other individuals. Such protocols ensure that the textual data arrives at the one or more destination computing devices in entirety or near entirety. Furthermore, the various software applications may utilize a variety of visual components (e.g., thought clouds/bubbles, message boxes and/or the like) to present the textual data to the individual on a computer display.
As such, the organization may employ one or more content filters (e.g., at a network gateway, an email server and/or the like) to monitor and control text-based communications between computing devices within the organization and another computing device. Unfortunately, one or more content filters need to be constantly modified in order to effectively monitor and control text-based communications that are communicated through new protocols.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for a method and apparatus for monitoring text-based communications to secure a computer.